Research on the Spatial Effect of Government Science and Technology Expenditure on the Development of Digital Economy

Abstract

In the context of a unified large market, the development of digital economy has become the focus. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper uses the spatial Durbin model to examine the impact of government spending on digital economy through different spatial weight matrices. The research results show that: 1) The government science and technology expenditure in all provinces in China has a significant positive spatial correlation with the level of digital economy development; 2) The comparative analysis of different weight matrices show that the impact of local government science and technology expenditure on the level of digital economy development is significant and positive, and there is a certain spatial spillover effect; 3) Through the heterogeneity test, the spillover effect of the central and western regions of China is more obvious under the setting of the geographical weight matrix, and the spillover effect of the east is more obvious under the setting of the economic matrix weight. At the same time, this study expands the research on the influencing factors of the development level of the digital economy, and puts forward policy recommendations corresponding to government science and technology expenditure and the development of the digital economy based on the empirical results.